


The Moon and the Truth

by Brumeier



Series: Task Force...In Space! [2]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Case Fic, Community: story-works, First Kiss, M/M, Moon, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 14:02:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20210953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: Steve, Danny, and Kono have traveled to the moon as a favor to the Governor of Orion Station, and certain truths will be revealed when things get dangerous.





	The Moon and the Truth

**Author's Note:**

> **Written for:**  
Story_works flash challenge: Moon  
Crossover Coffee Round 005: AU – In Space

_Yours is the light by which my spirit’s born: - you are my sun, my moon, and all my stars._ (e.e. cummings)

*o*

“This was not part of the deal,” Danny complained.

“You should always read the fine print,” Steve advised, unable to keep the grin off his face.

How foolish he’d been, to think he had any kind of a life before he met Danny Williams, ex-cop and ex-Watchdog drone. Steve now understand he’d only had a vague approximation of a life, had merely been going through the motions.

“If I knew the Governor of Orion Station had so many so-called friends off-station, I would never have agreed to be on your little task force. I’m not an astronaut, for pity’s sake! Steven! Are you even listening to me?”

Steve was always listening, even if he was momentarily distracted by the way the clingy gray spacesuit showed off Danny’s particular gluteal assets. 

“I’m always listening,” he said. “Because you’re always the one talking.”

Danny flipped him off without turning around. He had too big a personality to contain on a mere space station, especially the tiny cubicle he called an apartment. Danny was larger than life, full of big words and bigger gestures and the biggest heart. Steve was the one that had pulled Danny into the task force, but it was Danny who pulled Steve into his personal orbit. 

When Governor Denning had mentioned a problem at Lunar Colony Nagi-Cohn, Steve had jumped at the chance to offer the task force’s assistance. It was nothing official, of course, since there was already a private security force operating out of the colony. Just a friend helping another friend, and Steve getting to see Danny in a spacesuit.

“So now what? We knock?”

They’d driven a Rover from Nagi-Cohn to the small southern outpost, but Steve had insisted they do the last two klicks on foot, so they wouldn’t spook the person they’d come to check on.

“Kono?”

_The code to the airlock is tango-alpha-seven-five-beta-niner, Kono replied over the comms. _

She was monitoring from Nagi-Cohn in case they needed backup. Chin, unfortunately, was still on Station restriction.

Steve punched in the code and stood back so Danny could get in the airlock. He followed, sealing the door behind them, and when the light turned green he removed his helmet.

“Great. Recycled air to recycled air. Refreshing.”

Danny, unlike Steve, knew what fresh air tasted like. He’d been Earthbound until his daughter moved to Orion Station, had experienced wind and rain and the warmth of the sun. Steve’s father had sent him to the Station when he was young, too young to remember how it had felt playing in the waves on their beach in Hawaii.

The outpost was small and there was no immediate indication that anyone even lived there. The main room was very sparsely furnished and there wasn’t a single thing that looked out of place.

“No dust on anything,” Danny commented, dragging one finger across a Lucite table. “Someone’s been here recently. What are we supposed to be looking for?”

“Denning’s contact doesn’t have firm evidence of any wrong-doing, just a pile of circumstantials that the Lunar Cops don’t have the authority to look into.”

“What kind of circumstantials?” 

“An uptick in visitors to Nagi-Cohn. The kind of visitors with diplomatic pouches and immunity. Rumors about illicit meetings, rumors about questionable financial transactions.”

Danny looked at Steve, a disgruntled expression on his face. “This is why you dragged us here? For rumors and unsubstantiated claims? Babe, I know you’re new to law enforcement, but this is the kind of favor we shouldn’t be involved in.”

Steve always felt a little thrill when Danny called him ‘babe’, even though he was well aware it was just an expression the other man liked to use. It didn’t mean anything. Just because Steve’s initial physical attraction had deepened didn’t mean Danny felt the same.

“So let’s just finish looking around and then we can report back that there wasn’t anything to find and Hauser looks clean.”

“Just for the record,” Danny said with a glare, “I don’t approve of this mission.”

“Noted.”

Danny rolled his eyes and moved into the next room while Steve looked around for places where information might be hidden: drawers, niches, wall panels. He came up empty in the main room and the streamlined kitchen, in which almost all the cupboards were bare.

When Danny gave a whistle, Steve moved to join him in the bedroom. The space was barely big enough for the bed, which Danny was studying intently.

“You find something?”

“Look at the legs,” Danny said.

Steve immediately saw what Danny had seen. The legs at the foot of the bed were raised up off the floor, by only the barest margin but enough for Steve to know something was off. Maybe whatever Hauser was hiding was under the bed.

It took some doing, but they finally worked out the release mechanism that swung the bed up several feet, enough to see the panel in the floor.

“Kono, check the specs for this outpost. Any sublunar levels?”

_Negative, boss. That particular model of outpost was manufactured as a single level._

“Any requests submitted to add a sublevel?” Danny asked.

_No. Shall I go out on a limb and assume you’ve found one?_

“We’re about to confirm,” Steve replied. “Is Hauser still on the surface?”

_No record of him shuttling off, boss._

Danny pulled his pulse pistol a half second before Steve, and then gestured at the floor panel. “After you, Space Cadet.”

As if Steve wasn’t planning on being the first one through anyway. He popped the panel, revealing metal ladder rungs bolted to a rough stone wall. He flipped the guidelight on his pistol and did a quick scan. Seeing no immediate dangers, he scrambled down the ladder so he could offer cover for Danny to descend.

“What the hell is this for?” Danny asked once he was off the ladder. 

The walls were rocky, and tunnels led off in two different directions. One was completely dark, the other lit with evenly spaced LEDs.

“My best guess? Illegal mining.”

“Mining? What the hell do people mine on the moon?”

Steve resisted the urge to make a comment on Danny being an Earthsider with no interest in learning about anything not Earth-based, because he knew for a fact Danny had been doing research about the history of the stations as a way to get more acclimated to his new life.

“Rare metals, mostly. Things like scandium, which has been nearly depleted Earthside.” Steve led them down the lighted tunnel. “Lunar mining is strictly regulated.”

“And I’m guessing our man Hauser wasn’t hiding his operation under his bed just to be fun.”

“Good guess.”

_Guys, where are you?_

“Tunnel under the outpost. Looks like Hauser has his own mining operation happening here.”

_I’m reading a pretty big heat signature about one and a half klicks from the outpost, and it’s growing fast. You’re heading right toward it._

Steve exchanged a look with Danny. “Kono, is there a personal transport registered to Hauser?”

_Negative._

The tunnel started to glow, and Steve wasn’t imagining the swift rise in temperature. As usual, Danny was one step ahead of him. He grabbed the back of Steve’s spacesuit and yanked him back up the tunnel. 

“Let’s go!”

They ran, the tunnel filling with noise and heat and an orange glow and the overwhelming smell of rocket fuel. 

“Kono! He’s going for liftoff! Nagi-Cohn needs to sound the alarm!”

_On it, boss. Just get out of there!_

Rocket thrusters generated potentially life-threatening dust storms, which was why all shuttles in and out were supposed to happen on the authorized paved landing zones. Was Hauser doing something more than smuggling rare metals off the moon? 

“Up, Steven! Let’s go!”

But Steve veered at the last minute, grabbing hold of Danny’s hand and yanking him down the darkened tunnel.

“Are you insane?” Danny shouted, though he made no move to stop Steve or pull away.

“The liftoff could compromise the outpost. We’re safer down here.”

The guidelight illuminated the tunnel several feet ahead and Steve wasn’t wasting any time getting as far down it as he could get before liftoff. When the moment came the whole tunnel shook and Steve pressed Danny up against the wall to try and shield him from the loose lunar rock that was tumbling down on them.

Steve didn’t know how much of the flame-off from liftoff made it down their tunnel, though it got scarily hot for one long moment, because he kept his eyes closed. Danny’s hands were gripping Steve’s hips tight enough to leave bruises and he was muttering something unintelligible against the side of Steve’s neck.

When the shaking stopped, and they hadn’t been burnt to a crisp, Steve opened his eyes and blinked down at Danny, who was scowling back up at him.

“You okay?”

“Am I _okay_? I’m on a giant space rock and almost got turned into a flambé, and my insane partner asks me if I’m okay. I’m clearly not, you asshole.”

Steve was fully prepared to defend himself, but then Danny was kissing him, and he forgot what he was going to say. He was happy to forget everything but the slide of Danny’s tongue along his and the softness of Danny’s lips against his, better than anything he’d been imagining, but then Kono was breaking in.

_Boss! You guys okay?_

It took Steve an embarrassingly long moment to find his voice. “We’re fine, Kono. Are you tracking Hauser?”

_ISC is already moving to intercept. I’m coming out with a team to collect you in case the outpost has been compromised. Stay where you are._

“Roger that,” Steve said. He moved in for another kiss, but Danny stopped him with a hand on his chest.

“We need to talk about this.”

“Do we have to do it now?”

Danny gave that suggestion all due consideration, and then he surged up for another kiss. His hand moved from Steve’s chest to Steve’s ass, which was a welcome development.

Steve sincerely hoped Kono would take her own sweet time on the rescue. Hauser be damned.

**Author's Note:**

> **AN:** Title from a quote by Buddha: “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”


End file.
